Buttoneole fabric



Oct. 16, 1934. T. F. MOORE 1, 7,

BUTTONHOLE FABRIC Filed Feb. 19, 1932 19 1 13119 Hi J17 111T 111a @115. v1

I INVENTOR. I I [I a I W WW- I BY- g WK. W.

ATTORNEY.

Patented Oct. 16, 1934 v UNITED STATES BUTTONHOLE FABRIC Thomas F. Moore, Westerly, R. 1., aulgnor to George G. Moore Company, Westerly, R. L, a corporation of Rhode Island Application February 19, 1982, Serial No. 594,059

2 Claims.

The present invention relates to the weaving of fabrics in general, and in certain of its phases relates especially to elastic fabrics to which elasticity is conferred through the use of construc- 5 tional elements having inherent capability of elongation, such as the familiar strands of rubber, preferably though not necessarily enwrapped spirally with fibrous yarns.

The invention has as its object the provision 1 of a fabric in which apertures areprovided during the course of its manufacture, which apertures may serve a variety of purposes, and may take theform of buttonholes for the attachment of auxiliary parts to a finished article made from the fabric, as for example a corset or girdle made from this fabric and utilizing the buttonholes for the connection of garters or other garment supporting devices, or for fastening about the person of the wearer the ends of a garment such as a girdle made from the fabric, or for lengthand tension-adjusting purposes, as in the case of a garter, either of the limb-encircling type or the type which has its upper end attached to a corset or girdle, in both of which latter cases the lengthadjustment may be effected by attaching a reversely-bent end of the web at the desired intermediate point in the overall length or extent of the garter. Or the apertures may be introduced for the purpose of admitting air and increasing 80 the ventilation of the underlying portions of the wearers body when the fabric is worn as a part of a garment. Other objects are as will appear hereinafter.

To these ends, the invention comprises a fabric in which two adjacent warp elements form the respective selvage elements around which two separate weft elements reverse their direction. In between the sections extending lengthwise of the fabric in which these adjacent warps thus act as selvage elements for their respective wefts, the adjacent warps may be brought together to act as the common terminus of each of the two weft elements, so that each weft element will in turn loop around the two warps, and the two warps through being included within the turns of both weft elements will be common to the preceding separate and distinct fabric structures and the two structures will be united along the line of the two warps into a single fabric.

It has been proposed hitherto in certain instances in the making of elastic and non-elastic webbing for garters, suspenders, and the like, to provide buttonholes or similar apertures disposed in a longitudinal series and formed dur- 55 mg the weaving, so as to permit the reverselybent end forming the well-known length-adjusting loop of garters and suspenders to be secured at the desired point intermediate the effective length of the garter or suspender by means of a button or hook engaging in a selected aperture, 6 and without resort to metal clasps of the familiar friction type whichhave an injurious effect on the fabric through pinching and cutting the component rubber cords and also through chafing or discoloring the surface of the fabric. Such prior attempts have ordinarily not met with success, because the strain exerted by the shank of the button or hook or the bundle of threads by which the common button is applied to the reversely bent end has exerted a strain against the end of the buttonhole which the weft elements of the fabric were incapable of enduring long without unsightly distortion of the surface of the fabric and eventual wearing through of the wefts followed by splitting of the buttonhole lengthwise 78 of the warp elements. This has usually been because only a single weft element has been used, which could not be inserted with sufficient closeness of one pick to the succeeding pick to give the required strength to the fabric at this point, 80 especially in the case of elastic fabrics. But through the invention, however, which involves putting a terminal loop of each of the two weft elements around the common warp elements when reunited after being spread apart to form the buttonhole or aperture, the two warps are bound together so tightly in terminating the buttonhole as to resist completely all tendency of spreading and splitting of the fabric under the load of the button-shank or hook, and the double nature of the weft at this point gives the requisite strength and density to withstand the wear and avoid distortion without resort to increasing the thickness or density of the fabric at either side weftwise of the point of reunion of the two warp elements which are spread to form the buttonhole.

An illustrative embodiment of the invention as applied to an elastic fabric is shown in the mo accompanying drawing, in which,-

Fig. 1 is a face view on an enlarged scale of a section of elastic fabric suitable for garters, em-' bodying the invention.

Fig. 2 is a diagrammatic showing of the meth- 0d of constructing the fabric of Fig. 1, being a showing of the parts at the lower end of one of the buttonholes shown in Fig. 1, together with a short section of the solid portion of the fabric immediately below such buttonholes, with the elements in exaggerated spaced relation for clearness.

The arrangement of the warp elements'other than the two indicated at 1, 1, and their order or form of engagement with the wefts, forms no part of the present invention and may be of any desired or preferred nature, so long as consistent with the principles and practice of the invention.

In accordance with the invention, a pair of adjacent warps l, 1, are selected to define at the desired point in the width of the fabric the line of the series of apertures or buttonholes 3. In the present instance, these warps are elastic, comprising the usual rubber cord 5 enveloped in a fibrous wrapping 7 of yarns wound spirally about the rubber cord; though the practice of the invention is not limited to the use of elastic cords for this purpose, since in certain instances it will be desirable to employ non-elastic warps, properly bent to provide for fabric stretch, for this purpose in an elastic fabric, as where it is desired that the buttonhole shall not have capacity for enlargement; in the case of nonelastic webbing, ordinary non-elastic fibrous warp yarns will of course be used. These two warps may obviously also consist of more than one and each, the only requirement being that there shall be at least two adjacent warps each of which serves to define one side of the aperture 3 or buttonhole.

A typical arrangement of the remaining warps, with which the invention is not particularly involved, as indicated hereinbefore, is shown in Fig. 2, in which 9 are the binder warps, 11 are additional rubber warps and 13 are back warps.

With these several warps, performing their respective functions in the fabric, there are interwoven two separate and distinct weft threads, 15 and 17, which are each woven back and forth through its own set of warps, and neither of which engages the warps which are engaged by the other weft, throughout the weaving of the section or length of the fabric coextensive with the desired length of the aperture 3 or buttonhole. As shown, the weft 15 in making the buttonhole weaves wholly with the warps which lie to the left of the imaginary center line 19 which lies midway between the two selected covered rubber cords 1, and this weft reverses its direction of extent around the left-hand covered rubber cord 1 so that this cord 1 becomes the selvage warp enclosed within the successive loops of the weft 15 which confront the center line 19. Similarly, the other weft 17 weaves through its own warps only and around the covered rubber cord 1 at the right of the center line, such cord 1 acting as the inward selvage warp for this weft thread, with the result that each weft interweaves with its respective warps to produce two wholly separate and distinct fabric structures extending for the length of the aperture 3 or buttonhole. The wefts 15, 17 are of suflicient size and are inserted with sufiicient density to cover the cords 1 more or less completely throughout the extent of the aperture 3, even when the fabric is materially lengthened by stretching, and the binder warp 9 adjacent each cord 1 is worked with the weft so as to draw the wefts inward toward the center of the thickness of the fabric and below the levels of the planes of the face and back of the fabric, giving'to the binding of the buttonholes an attractive beaded or rolled aspect which is particularly conspicuous at the face of the fabric. The weaving of this particular fabric is conveniently effected in standard types of doubleshuttle looms, as for example by weaving the fabric structure at the left of the center line 19 and within the length of the aperture 3 through the use of the top shuttle to carry the weft 15, its proper warps being worked in the desired manner up and down from the top to bottom of the top-shuttle shed only; at the same time, the weft 17'is being interwoven with its proper warps all of which lie to the right of the center line 19, and all of which are worked back and forth from top to bottom of the bottom-shuttle shed only.

At the termination of the desired lengthwise extent of the aperture 3 or buttonhole, as at the point indicated at'21, in Fig.2, the two covered rubber cords 1 which have previously defined the two sides of the aperture are worked together, so that each weft 15, 1'7, loops around both cords 1 in reversing its direction from inward to outward extent, so that the two cords 1 which have represented the selvage warps of the aperture now become common to both fabric structures, and hence the structures are joined along the line of these hitherto selvage warps, through the inclusion of the adjacent selvage warp of the other fabric structure within the loops of each fabric structure. This is accomplished through working the two center selvage cords 1 together, inserting a pick with each shuttle, and throwing them all the way from the top of the shed of the top shuttle down to the bottom shed of the bottom shuttle, and after the next pick with both shuttles returning both these two cords 1 to the top shed of the top shuttle, thereafter continuing this extreme throw of these cords at each pick as far as desired, herein all the way from the termination of one buttonhole or aperture to the commencement of the next.

By this arrangement, not only are there twice as many strands of filling extending across the center line 19 between the two center selvage cords 1 for the purpose of taking'the wear of the button-shank or hook, as there would be in weaving the portion of fabric between apertures with a single weft inserted all the way across this portion of the fabric by a single shuttle, but also the looping of the wefts around the two warps alternately from opposite sides binds and lashes the two cords 1 together above and below each aperture or buttonhole, and in the illustrated structure throughout the full extent between buttonholes, in a manner positively precluding any tendency of their being spread apart by the load of the button-shank or hook.

It is to be understood that any desired variation in the interweaving of the two wefts with the various warps including the cords 1 may take place between apertures, as to produce a figure or design along the center line 19 between apertures, without departure from the principles of the invention. The simple looping of both wefts around the paired cords 1 gives a high rounded welt-like aspect to the line joining successive buttonholes, which is emphasized by the described drawing-down of the wefts by the binder-warps adjacent the cords 1, and when silk or rayon wefts are used gives a pleasing characteristic aspect to the face.

' While I have illustrated and described a certain form in which the invention may be embodied, I am aware that many modifications may be made therein by any person skilled in the art, without departing from the scope of the invention as expressed in the claims. Therefore, I do not wish to be limited to the particular form shown, or to the details of construction thereof, but what I do claim is:-

1. Elastic fabric having in combination elastic and non-elastic warp elements including a pair of adjacent elastic warps, two weft elements each interwoven with its respective warps and with one warp of the said pair, the pair of warps being at successive intervals included within the terminal loops of both wefts and separated so that each warp of the pair is included within the loops of one weft only.

THOMAS F. MOORE. 

